What Caught My Eye This Week: No One is Safe from AI

If you’ve been a subscriber for a while, you know I’m a big fan of how New York Magazine has been covering the AI shift in the economy. This week, the writers there did it again with this piece on What Happens when AI replaces entry-level jobs. 

While I am no longer an entry-level worker myself, I know the value of helping young people find their paths, hone their skills, and exist in the corporate world. Hell, I used to run an internship program for CNN Business, and I found huge value in helping young people get their start in a giant, intimidating newsroom. 

The thing that struck me about the piece was that one person profiled, a guy named Donald King, who worked at PwC to build AI agents, to essentially replace himself. He and his colleagues didn’t realize this until they were well into the project. Throughout the entire process, he thought he was safe and was making moves in his career to ensure he remained employed, even though he was literally building the machine that would eat his job. After King won an internal hackathon at PwC, he was made redundant. According to the story, he’s still looking for work, though he’s turned into a layoff influencer on TikTok and built his own marketing company.

We’ve seen a similar shift in the journalism world lately. If you troll the job listings, you’ve probably seen hundreds of openings for “freelance editors” or “journalists” from AI labeling farms like Mercor, Crossing Hurdles, ScaleAI, and more. I don’t include those listings in this newsletter, fwiw. They’re everywhere, and I don’t think they’re helpful to those of us actively seeking reliable, rewarding, real-living wage, paid work. I’m also not in the business of promoting jobs whose sole goal is to replace us. 

That being said, I don’t have any shade for those who have taken jobs at those Al-labeling farms. In many cases, it's a stopgap that has helped people pay for the skyrocketing cost of health care or the insane cost of food for their families, or they’re using it as steady work to supplement their journalism habit. I will also confess that I have applied for and gone through some of these AI-farm interviews, partly because I have been curious about the process and partly because I know that, to understand what’s happening in the space, I should experience it myself. 

I do think it is important to recognize that there is a path between getting smart about AI, using it in our work, and building things that will replace human beings. The bottom line, and one I think we all know (though we don’t want to admit it), is that no one is safe from AI. 

So, as freelancers and full-timers, we have a choice: Some people have chosen to simply ignore AI and hope it goes away (it's not). Others have decided to throw their lot in with AI and help it learn from journalists' hard work and experience. I think there’s a path between these two extremes, and it's one I’d like to help people navigate going forward. 

So, I’m officially putting a date on the books: December 10 at 12 pm ET/9 am PT. 

I am going to offer a free, 30-minute webinar on the basics of AI and how you can (and should be) using it for your journalism work. 

We’ll talk through basic understanding of what AI is, and what it isn’t, and some of the ethical conversations that come up around its use.  I’ll also share the back-end prompt I use to keep things like GPT on track (and prevent it from making up facts) and how I use it as an editorial assistant to help me hone my pitches, ideas, and give usable feedback on stories I write. 

If you’re interested, I’ll send out a sign-up link in the next newsletter. 

Paid $5-per-month subscribers will get access to an e-book version of the session following the event, as well as the recording, so you can actually apply what I share if you cannot make the session. 

Those of you who free subscribers will only get access to the live event on December 10. And remember, at the end of November, the 7-day trial goes away for new subscribers.

If you want a quick primer ahead of this session, I address how to use AI when crafting your pitches in my new ebook and include the exact prompt I use to keep things reigned in. Get yours here.

On to the Jobs

It’s another stellar week for freelance gigs. This week’s list includes opportunities with:

🔬Scientific American, where they pay $1 per word and up

💾MIT Technology Review, where you can earn as much as $2 per word

🍎Apple News, where the hourly pay is $60 an hour (this is a new listing, different from last weeks)

🍔Bon Appétit calls for pitches that pay up to $1 per word

If you want the right editors to pitch (as in, their actual emails), you’ll need to become a paid subscriber for just $5 per month to access contact information as well as pitch guides and more.

On the full-time front, we’ve got a LOT of opportunities, too. These include jobs with: 

📰ProPublica

🛜Wired

📚Britannica

🎓UCLA 

And more–all with pay that goes up to $215,000 for remote and hybrid roles. 

The Dishonorable List is notably dishonorable this week, while the Passion Projects list has a ton of rad things to do, as long as you don’t mind making minimal money. 

Finally, a reminder for those of you who have not yet made the leap to the $5 per month subscription, the free 7-day trial will end on Nov. 30. You have two weeks left to check out the newsletter and get access to all the past issues with pitching tips, editor email addresses, and more.

👉 Sign in or upgrade for access to all the freelance and staff media jobs this week — including roles paying up to $215,000 per year.

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